


Forget me not

by skele_smol



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Blind Violet (Walking Dead: Done Running), F/F, Forgiveness, Internal Conflict, Mental Anguish, One Shot, Rescue, Romance Violet/Save Louis Route (Walking Dead), Short One Shot, Trapped, abandoned, character piece, mental manipulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-18 00:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19965964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skele_smol/pseuds/skele_smol
Summary: Violet was a person.Or she used to be a person.Or at least, she liked to think that she had once been a person. A person with scars and bruises. A person who dreamed of giving up and letting this world consume her, a person who secretly hoped that she wouldn't let her.One-shot short premise for an up coming multi chapter story





	Forget me not

**Author's Note:**

> Just something small and hopefully thought provoking. To whet your whistle for the full story

Violet was a person.

Or she used to be a person.

Or at least, she liked to think that she had once been a person. A person with scars and bruises. A person who dreamed of giving up and letting this world consume her, a person who secretly hoped that she wouldn't let her.

And for a shining moment Violet had that. She had allowed Clementine inside her walls and barriers, permitted her to see the person who wore a cloak of thorns and encased herself in crystal ice. Had allowed her to glimpse the person who armed herself with bladed words and cutting sarcasm and whose armor gleamed to hide the rust and dents and cracks. 

She had expected Clementine to leave her. To only see the her that Violet had carved in stone as a small and scared little girl. But Clementine hadn't run from her as the others had. Instead she smiled at her with both her lips and her eyes as she had cooed and coaxed Violet out like a half wild animal with the intent to domesticate her.

Gifting her with pretty words that she had longed to hear. _"Why would I go anywhere else, if you're here?"_

Embraced her with empty lines that now eddy and swirl through her memories. _"I think... I mean, I hope... we're more than just friends. And, I want..."_

After that, there had been no more words, just gentle, slightly chapped lips pressing against her own. Just barely long enough for her to pour every last emotion, every last word that she had wanted to say but couldn't into the touch. _"To love you. To be together... as girlfriends. Who will never leave you. To be that one who always comes back to you."_

Clementine had wooed her. And she had let her.

Her heartache has wrung her out until she is hollow and dry inside. Until no more tears could come. Her insides are raw as if the winter winds that stormed within were blowing right through her skin.

Their last conversation haunts her. Taunts her. Replaying over and over like an echo until the words warped and twisted and faded into shadow.

What Clementine hid behind her truths were lies that fail to leave the shadows. What lay behind Clementine's warm honesty was a brutal betrayal. And what she made her feel reminds Violet with every minute that she passes alone, scared and confused, is that no one ever comes back.

Not for her. Not really.

So now she will keep the curtains closed so she won't have to witness the way this world will break and reshape her. How could she when her world has already crumbled.

It is a cruel reality in life that a heart can keep on beating even after it has been broken in two. Even more so when that heart had barely begun to tape and staple itself back together. Caged behind Violet’s ribs it feels as though it is being gripped in an ice-cold vice and it throbs and aches as if it will eventually implode inside her chest. But still it continues to pump. The thump-thump-thumping that never ends.

\-----------------------------

Violet is a person.

Clementine sees her as a person.

Or at least she can see the person she had once been. The person with scars and bruises all over their body. The broken person who has been betrayed again and again and again and still she fights on.

She sees in Violet the picture of misery, reflected in both her inside and outside.

_"I looked for you! When they grabbed me I saw... you let them take me!"_

She sees her. She does. She always sees her. Clementine can read her deeper than anyone else, she can find the pain in those grey-green eyes, the pain she usually hides so carefully screams to her. It’s in her posture, the way that she curls around herself. It has sat there for Violet’s entire life time, trapped in the confusion that she carries.

_"I'm just supposed to forget that because you're here now? Some fucking feelings you had for me."_

But she can see the love in her too. The love that Violet would have given freely were it not for the scars. And it's still there, simmering gently, just barely beneath the hurt and Clementine is determined that one day she will set that Violet free again.

_"No, Clem. I'm done. This whole situation is so fucked! At least here I have Minnie-"_

Clementine knows she's not perfect, yet she knows she loves her. Violet knows what it means to love someone and Clementine knows who is deserving of being saved and loved. And it's Violet. She just needs Violet to give her a chance to find her feet again, to stop her own head from spinning from how fast everything went to shit and she'll prove it. For as long as she can and for as long as Violet needs.

There is so much of Violet's life that has been nothing short of hell for her soul, and she stays there, more from strength and loyalty rather than weakness. Clementine knows this but she finds herself wishing that Violet would let her join her in that pain. To let her walk with her and share that same torture she knows Violet had borne alone for years. And one day she knows she can find just the right way to bring Violet home. But that loyalty that Clementine so adores is a double edged sword and Violet is teetering upon its keen cutting line.

_"Don't act like you know her. She tried to escape. Her and Sophie..."_

Once again her emotions turn jagged. Razor wire and switchblades forcing her back out and Clementine could see how the twisted up story, buried deep inside, tightens Violet's features and her eyes cry out their pain as the swirls of grays chokes out the vibrancy of the greens. But the mask is so cracked and Clementine can see her there, _her_ Violet, trapped and begging for her to reach out through her guards. 

To take her away from here where everything is designed to confuse her. Away from the place where Minnie is not the girl she knew, not the lifeline she needs but a plot to confuse and warp her logical thoughts, and a weapon to corrupt and destroy her. 

She hears the harsh words designed to push her away, but Clementine zeroes in and latches onto the plea that is all but silenced beneath the barbed words of deflection. It rings in her ears so loudly that she doesn’t have to imagine the warm rasp of Violet's voice, doesn’t have to imagine the words that beg for her not to listen to her lips or the instinctive drive to push away, but to listen to her heart and read her like she had done that first night in the dorms. _"I love you, please help me. Come sit with me; hold my hand. Look into my eyes, connect, because I'm scared and I'm falling. Please don’t leave me."_

But she can't. No matter how Clementine reaches her hands out, Violet isn’t ready and fails to see her. She watches in despair as Violet curls herself in on herself, fingers digging into her own biceps and teeth tearing up her lips that were so soft on Clementine’s own.

Violet is falling, just far and just fast enough that she remains scarcely out of reach and Clementine is so scared that she has already lost her to Lilly, to Minnie, to her own self destructive thoughts.

\-------------------------------

Violet was a beautiful person.

Violet is _still_ a beautiful person.

Or at least, that’s what Clementine tells her when she holds her close when they are alone. A once broken, now stronger person even with all the new scars and bruises to add to her original collection all over her body. There is beauty in her scars, the way that they stretched their webbed fingers across her skin. Delicate and unique like a snowflake branded in her flesh. There is beauty in the frosted over green, not in the same polished way as before when they glittered and gleamed, but uncut and raw and natural.

And she accepts this. She has to. She has to learn to accept the words of others now that she can no longer see for herself. She has to learn to trust Clementine without boundaries now. She has to let Clementine all the way in and keep her safe as she keeps her safe in return. To make a home in each other. To accept the flaws of one another and embrace their limitations. And Violet now has to learn what Clementine had hidden behind her truth was not lies, but a love so bright that it caused Violet to doubt her own worthiness. What lay behind Clementine's warm honesty was no brutal betrayal, but a trust so sincere that Violet was terrified she would tarnish. She understands it now, that the betrayal she felt while trapped with Lilly and Minnie as they relentlessly battered her defenses, wormed their way in to find her vulnerabilities and oozed their venom into her, it was not by Clementine, but rather herself.

Clementine had done what she believed to be right, saved the most obviously softer of the two, assured herself that everything would come out alright in the end. That Violet would see and understand why she had to save Louis first. Both knew the gentle soul would never have lasted, he would have withered entirely. And though Violet may no longer truly _see_ it, in time she would feel it.

They say time can heal all things. But neither Clementine or Violet had ever healed. Healing implied moving on and leaving everything behind them. And both Violet and Clementine took their lessons and bitter experiences to heart, and while they could never heal, not completely, they could learn to become better. 

Together.


End file.
